Max-Level Son of a Chaebol Family - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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01. Life’s Report Card

It looks like my son is going to get married.

They say that meeting the in-laws is a battlefield without gunfire where both families come together.

‘For my son’s harmonious family! Let me suppress my temper and go in!’

That’s how I came out with firm resolve.

The people from the in-laws’ side flinched the moment they saw me at the meeting.

“Oh my goodness!”

“Ahem!”

It was because of the burn scars covering more than half of my face.

I took off my Fedora Hat and greeted them as politely as possible.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Cha Jeong-hyeok, Kang-woo’s father.”

As expected, the words poured out right to my face were sharper than knife points.

The gazes sizing me up from head to toe were intense.

As if this was a place to evaluate my life.

“I heard you live in a Sillim-dong Multi-family House?”

“Then that means you can’t even afford to help with villa deposit money. Ahem!”

“If you make a living with dirty money… are you perhaps a sanitation worker?”

Somehow my life got messed up and I’m living by handling black money.

People in this business call me the ‘Sillim-dong Ant Hell.’

If Chaebol Families operate in the light, we move in the shadows.

I was one of the five big shots who controlled the Underground Finance of the Republic of Korea.

“Of course you haven’t prepared for retirement either.”

“Don’t tell me you’re planning to mooch living expenses off the kids?”

Since this was an important matter, I had to convey my intentions clearly.

I waved my hands dismissively.

“How could I do that? As a parent, I should be helping the kids instead of clinging to them like a parasite. I’m not shameless enough for that.”

I meant to clear up the misunderstanding.

But the in-laws’ people were staring at my hands with horrified expressions.

I tried to hide my blunt hands under the table while attempting to ease the atmosphere with a smile.

Failed.

The atmosphere became even colder because of my gold teeth—4 on top, 8 on bottom.

“You’re missing two fingers?”

This happened when I got tangled up with organized crime back in the day… If I tell the truth, would she faint?

“I noticed earlier that you’re limping too.”

That’s from getting involved with Korean-Chinese hitmen… There’s no way to explain this either, is there?

‘I need to change the subject.’

I fumbled around and pulled out what I had prepared in advance.

Two extremely worn bank passbooks.

“These were left by Kang-woo’s birth mother when she died.”

She was a woman who saved up money bit by bit, even if it was just small change.

As soon as she saw the bank passbooks, the prospective mother-in-law snatched them like an eagle.

She flipped through them and then snorted derisively.

“No matter how much dust you gather, it’s still just dust, isn’t it? How dare you shove something like this at me calling it a bank passbook. I’m truly flabbergasted.”

The prospective mother-in-law gulped down water angrily.

Then she glared fiercely at her daughter.

“Hey, do you really have to go through with this marriage? How is it that no matter what man you choose, you always pick someone worse off than an orphan!”

Then she scolded silently with just her mouth movements.

-You said he had lots of money!

The prospective daughter-in-law being interrogated kept her mouth tightly shut and glared coldly at my son.

My son was being cursed with looks even by the woman he was supposed to marry.

“Forget about ancestral rites and holidays—there’s no need to even acknowledge me. Just consider me as if I don’t exist.”

I bowed my head.

“Could you please just look after our child? If you take away the father, he’s quite a decent young man. I’m begging you.”

A request must always be accompanied by sincerity.

‘I thought this might happen, so I prepared the 124-pyeong Han River View Penthouse.’

7 rooms, 4 bathrooms, 4 parking spaces per unit, a Property Deed worth 14.9 billion won.

Just as I was about to pull it out from my jacket, my son was faster than me.

“Father, please lift your head. Why are you hanging your head like a criminal?”

My son threw down his napkin and shot up from his seat.

“Hyeon-yeong, I’m sorry. I don’t think I can go through with this marriage.”

“Kang-woo!”

“I don’t think I need to explain the reason.”

“Let me just ask one thing. Kang-woo, can’t you really even manage to bring a single 80-pyeong Gangnam Apartment?”

My son squeezed his eyes shut.

“Were the Luxury Goods Kang-woo wears, the Foreign Car, and all his spending habits fake?”

“Father, that’s enough. Please get up.”

My son stormed out of the meeting without looking back.

I also stood up abruptly.

“Our child is still young and doesn’t know much. I’ll go bring him back right away.”

“Hmph, forget it! I don’t think we’ll have any reason to see each other again!”

The prospective mother-in-law irritably threw down her napkin and tried to get up.

My gaze toward the in-laws naturally turned cold.

When our eyes met, the woman who had been acting irritated hesitated.

“The meeting isn’t over yet.”

My tone naturally became cold as well.

The in-laws glanced at me nervously, fidgeted, then sat back down.

“That Bank Passbook doesn’t belong to you yet either.”

The prospective father-in-law hastily snatched away the Bank Passbook that the prospective mother-in-law had quietly pocketed and pushed it toward me.

Only then did I withdraw my gaze and turn around.

I limped after my son on my uncomfortable leg.

There’s still room to salvage this situation.

“Kang-woo!”

My son was sitting on a bench in the garden, smoking a cigarette.

The red glow traveled quickly up the cigarette as it burned.

It looked just like his insides were burning away.

The words I had meant to say to my son retreated back into my throat.

I had no choice but to sit down beside him and pat his shoulder a couple of times.

“You’ve been humiliated.”

“Humiliated? You’re the one who heard all those insults, Father. I’m sorry.”

“What’s there to be sorry about? It’s not like you committed some crime.”

“Having no eye for women is a crime.”

My son let out a long sigh.

Ever since he was young, this boy used to sing about wanting to find a good woman and create a home filled with constant laughter.

“Wasn’t she the woman you loved enough to think about marriage?”

“Forget it.”

“That’s enough. There’s no need to call off a marriage over money.”

“I was always confused. Whether she loved me or my money. Now that I’ve confirmed her true feelings, it’s rather bitter.”

Feeling frustrated, I took out a cigarette and put it in my mouth.

My son lit it for me.

“That bank passbook. You said Mother saved it for me.”

“That’s right. Your mother probably scraped together every penny to save that money.”

Why had I brought it here?

“To buy delicious food for your daughter-in-law, to buy treats for your grandchildren. Even if your mother couldn’t buy you a house, she could at least do that much. Let’s consider it the wedding gift your mother had prepared.”

“Hah…”

My son had a complicated expression on his face.

“This is the wedding gift I prepared for you.”

I held out the property deed and bank passbook I had tried to take out earlier.

My son shook his head firmly.

“How can I accept this too? Just raising me was enough, Father.”

“Take it.”

I forced it into my son’s hands.

My bank passbook would be quite substantial.

‘This is exactly my life’s report card.’

I added a few more documents on top and handed them over.

“What’s this now?”

“Weapons I brought to use if necessary.”

Would I go to a battlefield empty-handed without any weapons?

I had thoroughly investigated the in-laws’ background.

“Ha, what a truly trashy family.”

As my son flipped through the documents I gave him, he kept letting out bitter laughs.

The papers crumpled in my son’s grip.

‘Did I give this for nothing? No. It’s a hundred times better to know and steel yourself than to be blindsided.’

Though it’s true that seeing such disgusting behavior you didn’t need to see makes you feel dirty.

I patted my son’s shoulder a few more times.

“Go in and see. If she’s a woman worth keeping, then keep her.”

“Father, after seeing this family’s disgraceful state, you still tell me to keep her?”

“Just because a few grapes are rotten doesn’t mean you have to throw away the whole bunch.”

“······.”

“Just look at the woman. Consider whether she’s a good woman when you separate her from her parents, whether she’s someone you want to spend your life with even if it means putting up with her parents. That’s all you need to think about.”

I smiled wryly.

“Don’t lose someone precious because of pointless pride. That’s something only a pathetic man would do.”

“Huh······.”

“Just live happily and well. That’s really all I need. So······.”

“Come to think of it, I left mother’s bank passbook behind. Wait just a moment.”

My son also smiled wryly.

It was the expression of a man who had made up his mind.

“That would be too generous for Hyeon-yeong. Thank you, Father!”

My son headed toward the Family Meeting Venue, conspicuously waving the documents that thoroughly exposed that family’s secrets.

“Father said it himself. That giving up what should be given up is the secret to happiness. I have no intention of picking up and using shit-stained toilet paper.”

It meant I was screwed.

‘Damn, if I’d known this would happen, I should have dragged him to the basement first, threatened him, then proceeded with the meeting.’

Our Company’s underground workshop has excellent soundproofing facilities.

I frowned and inhaled the cigarette smoke deep into my lungs.

“Life really isn’t easy······. Cough cough!”

A coughing fit erupted.

It wouldn’t stop easily.

Buzz buzz buzz.

I took out my smartphone.

The caller was the Taeseong University Hospital Director.

For reference, he’s my one and only true friend.

-Hey, Cha Jeong-hyeok! Aren’t you coming to the hospital right now? You’re a terminal lung cancer patient!

That was the reason I was rushing my son’s marriage.

“Didn’t you say at most a year, at least six months? You told me to prepare myself mentally.”

-So you’re just going to give up and die peacefully? Fine, good. Hang up. I’m calling Kang-woo right away.

“Who said I’m not going? I’m going, I’ll go!”

-That bastard won’t listen to me unless I sell out his son. I’m giving you 30 minutes. Got it?

Click.

He hung up first.

“That temper of his. Anyone can tell he’s my friend.”

I stubbed out the cigarette butt that had burned down to just before the filter in the sand-filled ashtray.

* * *

I left behind the guys who wanted to follow me and took the wheel myself.

Since it wasn’t peak rush hour, the road to the hospital was quite quiet.

-There is a school zone ahead. Please drive safely.

The intersection in front of the kindergarten.

Children dressed in matching yellow uniforms lined up and climbed onto the bus one by one.

A smile spread across my lips without me realizing it.

They were small and adorable children.

“Our Kang-woo was once that small too.”

When I brought home that child who was wandering the streets in the dead of winter, crying from hunger, Kang-woo was exactly that size.

I couldn’t bring myself to turn away from the child.

Instead, I took care of the child’s parents’ bodies that had been left neglected in the house, held their funeral, and registered Kang-woo in my family registry to raise him.

Vrooooom.

A 25-ton trailer came speeding from the opposite lane.

Even though it was a red light, its speed wasn’t slowing down at all.

‘What crazy bastard is driving like that… huh?’

It was drowsy driving.

The trailer was charging straight toward the kindergarten children.

“…!”

A silent scream burst out.

A horrific tragedy that I could foresee flashed through my mind.

‘No! The children…!’

In an instant, all kinds of thoughts flooded my mind.

I bit my lips hard.

‘Damn it!’

From decision to action.

It was so fast that even I couldn’t believe it.

I stepped hard on the accelerator.

Next came the brakes.

The brake pedal wasn’t enough, so I pulled the handbrake with all my strength too.

Screeeech! Crash!

The charging trailer slammed directly into the side of my car.

A tremendous impact followed.

It was worse than I had prepared for.

Crash, crash, crash, bang.

The car spun like a top, flipping up and down, left and right repeatedly.

That was my last memory.

* * *

King Yama spoke.

[Cha Jeong-hyeok, age 52, accidental death. You fought hard and alone your entire life. It was an unfortunate existence.]

My 52 years of life, which I had seen flash before my eyes, were summarized in two phrases.

Fighting hard and alone, and an unfortunate existence.

I didn’t particularly feel like arguing.

Because that was the truth.

[With such a wretched fate, you would have inevitably faced disability, homelessness, and a lonely death.]

I looked down at my uncomfortable limbs with a bitter expression.

Even they appeared blurry since my physical body had disappeared.

But the burn scars on my face and the surgical marks from the kidney I had to sell for money still throbbed.

[Even after receiving divine punishment, you managed to build a decent final chapter. Admirable indeed.]

Did I really?

[The net of heaven is vast and wide; though its mesh seems loose, nothing escapes it.]

It means that heaven’s net is large and wide, and though it may seem sparse, one can never escape from that net.

[You are a remarkable fellow. Though you lived a wretched life wandering back alleys your entire existence, you always struggled not to cross that final line. That could not have been easy.]

King Yama smiled benevolently.

[You raised other people’s children as your own, showed mercy to the weak, and took care of unfortunate neighbors whenever you could. How could I turn away from such virtue?]

I closed my eyes.

I realized this was the true report card of my life.

[Furthermore, you sacrificed your own life in place of fifteen young souls who were destined for the afterlife. This is the most noble form of self-sacrifice.]

Thank goodness. The children must have been safe.

[With this, I forgive all the sins you committed in your past life.]

Wait. Wait a minute.

“Sins I committed in my past life?”

[That’s right. You sold out your country in your past life.]

Who would have thought I sold out my country in a past life.

[Due to the sins of your past life, you had to live a miserable and difficult present life, so you should resent yourself, not heaven.]

At one time, I did resent heaven, wondering why only my life was such a shithole.

But now I see there was a reason for everything.

So I became very curious about that past life.

“How did I sell out my country?”

No matter how I look at it, it seems difficult to sell it out through ordinary means.

[Good. Considering the merit you’ve established this time, I’ll specially let you see it directly.]

Something fell with a thud.

[This is the Karma Mirror that reflects the karma of past lives.]

The Karma Mirror reflected my past life.

A general sweeping away the Japanese pirates who invaded Joseon at the very front.

That general was me.

-Don’t retreat! We must defeat the Japanese enemies and save this country and its people! Everyone follow me!

Like that, I fought desperately against the Japanese enemies until the very end and died in battle.

[······.]

“······.”

Silence flowed.

King Yama’s complexion, which had already been pale white, instantly turned blue.

I ran my hand through my hair and laughed.

“Divine punishment?”

King Yama cried out urgently.

[The net of heaven is vast and nothing escapes it. I will take responsibility for this life. You shall live as the greatest lucky person since the beginning of history!]

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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